Authorities are conducting a homicide investigation after a woman and a teenage girl were found dead in their apartment in Monrovia on Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 5.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Nimrod Perez Guerrero is suspected of killing two people in Monrovia on Wednesday. (Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)

Officials didn’t immediately provide information on how they may have died nor did they identify the two, but officials confirmed the girl was a student at Monrovia High School across the street.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department late Wednesday named 33-year-old Nimrod Perez Guerrero as a suspect in the double homicide.

Guerrero is five-foot-eight-inches tall and 200 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Officials said he is possibly driving a gray 2014 Toyota RAV4 with a license plate 7FPB132.

“The suspect should be considered armed and dangerous,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Wednesday night.

The statement didn’t say how the suspect may have come into contact with the victims.

Some of the teenage girl’s friends gathered Wednesday afternoon at the school’s lawn, where they huddled together under an umbrella as rain poured down. Members of the group cried and stared at the apartment complex that was surrounded by crime scene tape.‬

Authorities investigate after a woman and a girl were found dead in a Monrovia apartment unit on Wednesday, Dec. 5. (Photo by Jonah Valdez/Southern California News Group)

“The teachers, staff and students of Monrovia Unified School District are mourning tonight because of the loss of one of our Monrovia High School students. There is no question that a tragedy of this nature affects our entire community. It is difficult to process the death of anyone, much less someone so young and so promising,” said a statement from Monrovia Unified School District Superintendent Katherine Thorossian.

Thorossian said the district would provide grief counselors at the school for students.

“That makes me feel a little more (shook) up, not as safe,” said Jacob Chooniyom, a freshman at Monrovia High who was also watching the crime scene from the school’s lawn. “I can see the families around here, or people close, crying, and it’s like, it makes me a little worried about what could happen.”

The teenage girl who died was a student at Monrovia High School, which is located across the street from the girl’s apartment complex. (Photo by Jonah Valdez/Southern California News Group)

Officers were called to the 800 block of West Colorado Boulevard, where they found the woman and girl, said Lt. Derrick Alfred with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Monrovia police had been called to conduct a welfare check for the woman and girl at the apartment at 12:52 p.m., Monrovia Police Sgt. Yolanda Juarez said.

The call for the welfare check had originally come from an individual who contacted the Alhambra Police Department, Alfred said. After officers’ attempts to contact the two had failed, they entered the apartment through an open window and found the woman and girl, who were both unresponsive.

The girl had missed three to four days at school, Juarez said.

The Sheriff’s Department was called to assist Monrovia police in the investigation, and sheriff’s homicide detectives were sent to the scene.

The two were pronounced dead at the scene, Alfred said.

Martin Pont, who lives in a house next door to the apartment complex, watched the crime scene from his front lawn. He had just returned from buying groceries when he pulled into his driveway, where members of the media and law enforcement had gathered.

“It was just a real shock, and for something like that to happen next door,” Pont said, describing residents of the neighboring apartment complex as cool and friendly. “Even though we don’t know their names, we see them often. We just want to know who it was and why it happened.”

Anyone with information on the incident or the whereabouts of Guerrero can call The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Those who want to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.